When Bitches Brew was released in March 1970, jazz critics called it commercial garbage and Steely Dan's Donald Fagen dismissed it as out of tune, yet it won a Grammy, went platinum, reached No. 35 on the Billboard 200, and birthed jazz-rock fusion. This deep dive zooms in on the August 19 to 21, 1969 sessions at Columbia's Studio B, where Miles Davis, restless after In a Silent Way and absorbing rock, funk, Paul Buckmaster, and Joe Zawinul, expanded his band, handed out chord sketches instead of scores, and arranged everyone in a half circle with Wayne Shorter and himself in the middle while Max Roach watched uncredited.

The episode explains why Davis snapped his fingers to change tempo, shouted John McLaughlin's name for solos, hired rock bassist Harvey Brooks for a hypnotic groove, and stacked two bassists, multiple drummers, and up to t ...